


the descent

by besselfcn



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Self-Harm Imagery, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, death kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 14:53:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12134865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besselfcn/pseuds/besselfcn
Summary: He comes to you with the blade flat in his palm, outstretched, and says, “Kill me.”





	the descent

**Author's Note:**

> I chose not to add "Major Character Death" as an archive warning because he does come back, but please do heed the rest of the tags.

He comes to you with the blade flat in his palm, outstretched, and says, “Kill me.”

Before you can open your mouth--before you can refuse--he shuts the door behind him, takes your hand, and presses into it the hilt of the knife. “Percival,” he says, and his voice is reedy, thin but packed in desperation. “Please. I’ll come back--tomorrow morning, the next dawn, it’s not permanent, just… please. I _need_ this.”

When you look at him, you can tell. His hands tremble; his skin seems to itch; his body, always cold these days, now seems nearly icy.

You let him close your fingers around Whisper, leave it in your palm. 

“Strip.”

* * *

He is a landscape of pale flesh laid out before you, arms and lets spread to the sides like a pinned animal, neck tilted up to expose the veins of the neck, the stark curve of his throat. 

You strip, too, clothes neatly folded in the corner. The sheets stay; they will disappear in the morning, like the rest of the manson, like everything else you’ve done and are about to do tonight. 

There is a deep silence that has settled over the room, that seeps into his skin. He does not look at you; you cannot stop looking at him. You have never--not in Stillben, not on Glintshore, not in Whitestone--been more keenly aware of the scars carved into your body.

When you approach the bed, you hesitate for only a moment before straddling his chest with your knees. You are keenly aware of the contact of your skin on his, of your cock on his belly, the smooth skin beneath your body. It is a familiar feeling, the two of you this close, but this circumstance throws it into technicolor, every inch of it enhanced.

Your hand settles around his wrist, stretches his arm out; you feel more than hear him inhale sharply. There are old, thin lines already patterned there; years ago, or decades, maybe. You know, seeing them, the danger resting in this ritual, feel the urge to pull away, send him back to bed.

But you understand it, don’t you? You remember the way your wounds itched, the desire to peel them back open with your fingertips, the knife you found on the boat too dull to break the skin, the unbearable journey from unimaginable pain back to numbness. 

The blade scatters the few slivers of light in the room, and as you hold it it grows heavier in your hand.

“Percival,” he says, finally, and it gives you a start. “Make it slow. Please.”

You do nothing but nod. 

You inhale; exhale; push.

The curved edge of the blade cuts deep into the flesh, so razor-thin it takes the blood a moment to well up--and you hear Vax’s pain before you see it, in the way he gasps, somewhere between a moan and a sob. Your hands shake just slightly with the _ease_ of it, the feeling like cutting through soft butter

And of the rush it gave you. Of the warmth that spread from your fingertips as you did. 

“More,” he begs, and you grip his hand tighter and do not hesitate and you plunge down again, and again, slicing ribbons up his arm until your vision blurs, until you hear laughter.

* * *

The red-soaked sheets. The stench of copper. 

His body twitches on the bed, still conscious, if only barely. His eyes are rolled back, now, breathing ragged and wet, and when he moves the blood pours sluggishly from his wounds. You do not know if he is aware, anymore, of where he is, of who you are. You do not know if he cares. You could leave him like this, now--pour a potion down his throat until he can sleep and his goddess can lick clean his wounds.

But he did not ask you to maim him. He asked for death. 

Whisper, as sharp and as perfect as it is, is still stained now with his blood. You press the tip of it to the skin above his heart, and feel him shudder--and then you rethink. 

Something pulls your hand to the place just outside his collar bone. The skin twitches under the faintest prod of the blade--the blood already welling to the surface, with how sharp it is, with how desperately your body wants to dig into his. 

He opens his mouth; no sound comes out. 

You push into him to the hilt, slowly, with reverance, and he shudders and chokes on the blood in his mouth. 

You carve deep and steady, a diagonal until you reach his heart, and your body feels alive, feels on fire, feels like lightning through your palms as you take the blade out and push it in again, the other side now, a symmetrical carving to match, and all you can see is red, white and red and his face, going slowly slack, the light dimming from his eyes--

One more incision, from chest to navel, through all the soft of his stomach, through the organs and muscles and skin that stitch him together--the cut that finally kills him, the blood spilling over your fingers and palms as you watch--not feel, but watch, through the damage you’ve done--his heart still and stop. 

You set Whisper in his open palm, awash in blood. 

You sit against the door, black smoke rising in your chest, the damp air of a Whitestone basement on your tongue, and you wait for dawn.

* * *

His hands run through your hair. His fingers scrub the blood from your nails. 

When he passes over the Y-shaped scar across your torso he stops. His touch is gentle. The motions slow, nearly sad. 

He looks pristine. Untouched. Unmarred. 

A blank, inviting canvas.

* * *

“Percival,” he calls out, after you wake later that afternoon, when he catches you wandering the halls. You nod at him. Whisper is tucked into his belt; armor adorned once more, hair in clean and beaded braids. Eyes alight. Hands steady. “Thank you.”

Your fingers tremble. They ache. They itch.

“Of course,” you say. “Whatever you need.”


End file.
